Many traffic accidents result from the inability of drivers to view the state of a traffic light, e.g. whether the traffic light indicates a red light, due to sun glare, poor visibility such as during a snow storm, or driver drowsiness. Other accidents are caused due to running a red light, which is one of the most common moving violations (especially most popular when police officers must meet their ticket quotas for the month). It would be desirable to display a visible alert to a driver that is indicative of the state of a traffic light being approached at a relatively high speed.
Some other risky scenarios may happen when the driver cannot clearly see road signs.
All the existing methods have not yet provided satisfactory solutions to the problem of detecting dangerous scenarios of impending collisions between vehicles or between a vehicle and an object (which is considered to be an obstacle), due to running a red light or a stop sign. Therefore, a system which is capable of identifying and preventing such risky scenarios is highly desired.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a system for providing an indication of the state of a traffic light.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a system for providing a dearly visible indication of the state of a traffic light, which is not influenced by the instantaneous weather conditions.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a system and method for generating a visible or audible alert which causes a driver to react immediately in response to identification of a nearby vehicle that has run, or is about to run, a red light or traffic sign.
It is yet an additional object of the present invention to provide a method and system for continuously and automatically detecting dangerous scenarios of impending collisions between vehicles or between a vehicle and a stationary or moving object, due to failure to stop at a red light.
Other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.